Which mobile phone?

[QDMQDMQDM]

OK, all I want is a cheap, small, light mobile which will allow me HTML browsing (so I can get weather away from home) and have photo messaging facility (so I can send pics to friends and annoy them). Also lots of battery life.

Any suggestions? I suspect this beast doesn't exist yet.

QDM

[dublinpilot]

Don't think there's a html phone. Possibly the xda form o2?

You might be better off with a pda for web browising

dp

[flyingfemme]

I think the Sony-Ericsson P800 fits the bill........

Sony Ericsson (http://www.sonyericsson.com/uk/)

http://www.sonyericsson.com/images/spgc/CWS31_P800_cold_28_0_1015.jpg

:ok:

[IO540]

If you review the situation 6 months from now, you will find it a lot different. The market for GSM/GPRS PDAs (a PDA phone is what you really want for this) is developing rapidly right now.

[172 driver]

The P800 does indeed fit the bill, apart from the requirement for it to be cheap.

It is a PDA and phone, with two web browsers available along with e-mail, camera, etc. Contacts, diary, etc synchronise automatically with Outlook on your PC.

I've been using one for a few months now and am very pleased with it. If you definitely want something like this now then I don't think there's anything better - but, as IO540 says, there's always something better round the corner...

[QDMQDMQDM]

Thanks all. The P800 is a bit big and expensive. I may wait for the moment.

QDM

[flyingfemme]

172driver - at last, somebody who actually uses one!

Does the P800 have a proper Palm OS? Or is it some cutdown proprietary thing? I want to replace my Ericsson tri-band and m515 bluetooth setup in a couple of months. But I don't want to lose any programs!:confused:

[Boing_737]

O2 XDA is phone and PDA (although you might want to use the headset 'cos you'll look a bit of a knob holding it to your ear:D ). O2 are also bringing out an XDA2 soon - which will have a faster processor in it.

Most GPRS handsets are WAP, and then you can get HTML if you connect it to a PC. I think there are some exceptions, but the screen is so small that its probably not worth it. I suggest you also check out the rates for downloading as it is quite expensive per megabyte (GPRS uses quite alot of resources on a GSM network). It is also worth noting that you'll get a maximum of around 42kbits/sec download, and 14400 upload IF you are in a quiet area for GPRS. It is however, enough to stream, for instance, radio1 over the Internet (these are very small packets, but require good jitter characteristics).

The alternative is to go for 3, but I've heard that they don't have a connection to the Internet yet but you can certainly video message people and send MMS pictures. You can get a 3 phone on a £35 a month tarrif and get 750 voice call minutes for free!!

In the time that I have been working on GPRS I can say that it is really for business users, and most of my customers customers (I'm doing work for one of the GSM operators) are business related.

[slim_slag]

I'm using a SonyEricsson T68i with O2 monthly contract and GPRS "pay as you go" using standard O2 settings. I think its £2 + VAT per megabyte. This works overseas, including USA, but if you start doing that your bank balance will take a hit.

This Wap METAR (http://wapmet.speedfreak.com/index.html) claims to provide a weather service, but currently on the above kit it's giving me a 500 error and "contact service provider". Looking at the WML it seems OK, but I'm not really an expert, must be my phone.

If you go to Gelon (http://www.gelon.net/) and put the url http://wapmet.speedfreak.com/index.wml in the wapalyzer you get a bit further.

If it was working it shouldn't work out too much for a session, in the pennies rather than the pounds. Not sure why you would want to buy an expensive phone/pda for this if you can find a service provider that does a wap product. The T68i is a pretty useless phone, but it was the only small tri-band phone when I got it. I would look at another phone now. WAP is sort of usable if you use GPRS, it wasn't when you had to dial up all the time. I am all ears for a better answer.

Forgot, if you want to significantly increase battery life on the T68i turn off the light. I'm guessing that works for other phones too, but you then have problems with seeing the screen in some conditions.

[Keef]

There are a whole range of new phones due to become available "shortly", all around the £500 mark. If you want to take photographs with your phone, and look at the person you're talking to, then that's the going rate.

Second hand P800s are around the £300 mark (reducing as the new stuff appears on the market). See Ebay for details!

I get all the met I want from Avbrief via WAP using GPRS, for pennies or less per call. I'm still using my vintage Ericsson T39m (four years old and counting). It's tri-band, Bluetooth, GPRS, WAP etc - just no camera and no colour pix on the screen. But it does tell you who you're calling/who's calling you, and it's never gone wrong. Works in the USA, and all over Europe.

The battery lasts about three weeks on standby and for many hours of use (not a colour screen, see).

When I want to see a met chart, I use the iPaq via Bluetooth and GPRS (or BT + dial-up depending on how the mood takes me). That costs a bit more.

[flyingfemme]

Have to agree about the T39m Keef - I refuse to give mine up until something MUCH better comes along. Mine is even a girly shade of cream!

But it would be nice to have an integrated unit so I only need one set of charger/adaptors when I travel.

[Fly Stimulator]

QDM,

I was after a new mobile for exactly the same reasons as you describe. I ended up choosing a P800.

I got it last week and took it on its first trial run over the weekend with a trip down to France, Germany and Switzerland. It worked very well for looking up various weather sites, though it is useful to download the optional Opera browser for it since the built-in one doesn't cope very well with the more sophisticated Javascript-based web sites.

The mp3 player and camera are nice little toys, but being able to easily look up the weather was genuinely useful.

Here are a couple of pictures I took with the phone yesterday - not brilliant quality, but good enough to make one's friends at home jealous!

http://www.theflyingschool.co.uk/pprune/Friedrichshafen.jpg
Friedrichshafen


http://www.theflyingschool.co.uk/pprune/mountains.jpg
Swiss mountains

[172 driver]

Flyingfemme -

The P800 uses the Symbian operating system - effectively the latest release of Psion's OS. Symbian is owned by several of the phone manufacturers (Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Psion themselves) and you can expect to see other phones with the same OS shortly.

Not knowing the software you want to use, I don't know about porting to the P800 - check the website http://www.sonyericsson.com/P800/main.htm?software

[Fly Stimulator]

Just tried accessing the AIS NOTAM site with the P800 (using the Opera browser) and, somewhat to my surprise, it worked perfectly.

I think if you were going away on a trip it would be a good idea to set up your routes with a normal PC first and then use the phone to access them through the site's 'Handbook' facility to save a lot of fiddly data entry.

I've now got portable access to weather and NOTAM data, and can torment friends at home with photos too - everything I needed!

[Keef]

I liked the look of the P800 for all but one thing - it makes an enormous bulge in my top pocket, and would keep falling out.

Some of the new ones announced long ago but not yet on sale look to do most of that, in a much smaller package. The two most interesting to me are the X70 and the V600, but I've heard some very unhappy comments from users of earlier models from those two manufacturers concerning the "operating system".

So I might just stick with the T39m - I see second-hand prices for those are going UP quite significantly at the moment. Good triband bluetooth GPRS WAP flip phones are rare beasts at the moment.

[Fly Stimulator]

it makes an enormous bulge in my top pocket

Try putting it in your trouser pocket where an enormous bulge might be more fitting. ;)

[Keef]

No trouser pocket in my cassock, and such a bulge might be misinterpreted... :8

[Fly Stimulator]

Perhaps a sporran worn over the cassock would do the trick?

[Mike Cross]

I have an XDA which runs the Microsoft Pocket PC operating system and should therefore be able to run Memory Map and similar software and link into a GPS.

There are rumours that a Pocket PC version of NavBox ProPlan will come out soon, which will be excellent news.

The XDA has GPRS and WAP but I've not tried either of them yet.

I am still however using my Nokia 6310 because:-
1. It easily fits the pocket.
2. It has a much longer battery life.
3. It has proper buttons so you can dial one-handed. The XDA requires me to use a stylus, a two-handed job.
4. It is tri-band and works in the USA. The XDA is dual band and would not (not in Boston anyway)

Mike

[englishal]

I use a T68i and then use Avbrief with WAP. I wouldn't bother going for a flashy phone, half the time the data services don't work, especially if abroard anyway...plus they cost a bomb, especially if you want to send low quality pics. Might as well save your money and get a decent digital camera in my opinion.

The T68i is a good phone, small, huge battery life, bluetooth, triband, Infra red, great screen and the rest, and you can upgrade to it now for about a tenner.

Cheers
EA

[dublinpilot]

Fly Simulator,

Is that a Cirrus you fly?

You lucky :mad: !!

Oh, I am soooooooooooooo jealous :{ :{

Oh well....some day.......lottery result pending... :D

dp

[wher2guv]

go for the Nokia 3650 half decent pics, you can browse the web, upgradeable memory cards,
pay as you go 280 pound
pay monthly phones free and lowest tariff is 15 pound a month.

I would use the pound sign but for some reason my keyboard thinks it american !